


Poe Dameron: Running Out of Time

by Mengde



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hold onto your lily white butts, M/M, Spoilers for Rebels S4, The hell is 'canon' anyway, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-07 19:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mengde/pseuds/Mengde
Summary: A thirty-year-old holo shows 'Lieutenant' Poe Dameron sharing a drink with then-Commander Luke Skywalker as the Alliance fashions itself into the New Republic.  General Leia Organa has an explanation - and a mission - for Poe.  He has two choices: accept them, and undertake his greatest challenge yet... or let Luke Skywalker die.





	1. An Unexpected Briefing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Mengde, and you might recognize me from Sith Apprentice: Darth Venge, which has been on life-related hiatus since December. It's not dead, but this has been rattling around in my brain for a while and sometimes you need to step away and do something else.
> 
> Updates will be about once a week, not on any set day because I do not like making commitments that I then am forced to break.
> 
> This, or at least the 'present' time of the story, is set before TFA, but not particularly long before. And it will have lots of elements of the old EU's Rogue and Wraith Squadron books, particularly the campaign against Warlord Zsinj. But Luke will be with the task force, still serving as a Commander, because who the hell knows what's canon anymore anyway?
> 
> This does break one of my Absolute Rules about Star Wars, which is that it is Space Opera and time travel is death to Space Opera. But then I just finished watching Rebels S4, and if Dave Filoni can do it so can I.

Poe Dameron strides confidently into the office of the most important woman in the galaxy, snaps a sharp salute, and stands at attention.

Seated behind her desk, General Leia Organa doesn’t even look up at him.  She returns the salute in an offhanded, almost absentminded manner, eyes still on the datapad in front of her.  “Commander,” she says.  “Sit.  I have something important for you.”

Obeying, Poe seats himself across from her.  General Organa’s office is one of the most spacious rooms aboard the Resistance flagship, which is to say that it is only slightly less cramped, utilitarian, and boxy than most other rooms.  The Alderaanian flag stretches across the far wall behind the General, with the Alliance and New Republic flags to either side.  There are no other decorations, no holos, nothing.  It is a stark declaration.

“Ready and willing, General,” Poe says.

Now she does look up at him, the edge of her mouth quirking up in a half-smile.  “Are you ever not?  Look at this.”  She slides the datapad across the desk to him.

He picks it up, eyes it.  It is a report filed some twenty-seven years ago by then-Commander Luke Skywalker of the Alliance to Restore the Republic.  Galactic history is not his strong suit, but Poe recalls that at that time, the Alliance had just taken Coruscant and was beginning the process of becoming a proper Republic.

The report is somewhat fragmented; apparently, it suffered some kind of data corruption during a massive Imperial attack on Coruscant which caused widespread overloads in power grids all over the planet.  It is also, on top of that, dry reading.  Reports of a successful operation with Rogue and Wraith Squadrons out of General Solo’s anti-Warlord Zsinj task force.  Details are frustratingly sparse, not helped by the missing chunks of text.  A footnote: recommendation for a commendation for –

He feels his mouth go dry.  “What?  This is some kind of coincidence.”

“Is it?” General Organa asks.  “Nothing is impossible, Poe.  I’ve appended something to this report.  A holo taken from a victory celebration.”

Poe scrolls farther down and sees the holo in question.  People, dressed in New Republic uniforms or pilot gear, laughing, drinking, celebrating some kind of triumph in the lounge of a Mon Calamari cruiser.  There is General Han Solo, out of uniform in his famous smuggler’s garb, relaxing with his copilot Chewbacca and the legendary pilot Wedge Antilles.  In the corner –

In the corner, seated at a table and engaged in what looks like serious conversation, are Commander Luke Skywalker… and himself.

There is no mistaking it, even through the graininess of the low-grade holo.  Poe sees his own face every day in the mirror, after all.  He is across the table from Commander Skywalker, a drink in his hand, a smile on his lips.  He is wearing a New Republic flight suit.  It is extremely difficult to make out, but he is fairly certain he can see a Lieutenant’s rank insignia on his chest.

“I was maybe five or six when this holo was taken,” Poe says.  “My mother hadn’t even started teaching me to fly her old A-Wing yet.  How am I there, with Master Skywalker and – and everyone?  How is this report recommending a commendation for me, by name?”

“What I’m about to tell you is classified,” General Organa replies.  “You’re to repeat it to no one.  Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She taps a key on her desk’s control panel and an image appears in the air between them.  Some kind of structure, apparently made of smooth stone.  There is an image on it, pictograms depicting an old man, a young woman, and a third figure – deathly pale, dressed in black, with malevolent red eyes. 

“This,” General Organa says, “is the Jedi Temple on a world called Lothal.  Before the Battle of Yavin, the Phoenix Squadron cell of the Rebel Alliance discovered that the Temple held the key to accessing some kind of alternate dimension, one that lets anyone who enters access any point in space-time – including points that happened in what we think of as the past, or the future.”

Poe manages to keep the surprise from his face, but only barely.  “Time travel?”

“Yes.  The only individuals who ever experienced it are… not available for consultation at this time.  But I have all the reports from their companion, Sabine Wren, who wrote extensively about everything that happened.  Those reports are technically classified top-secret, but they let you in on some of the good stuff when they make you General.”

“Even if this is top-secret, I can’t imagine something this big staying hidden for long,” Poe points out.

General Organa shakes her head.  “The reason it has is because they destroyed the Temple to ensure Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and the Inquisitors couldn’t use it.  Which I think was a wise move.  But Resistance scouts recently discovered something on Eos while scanning the old Trade Federation foundries there looking for useful materiel.”  She presses another button, and the image of the Lothal Temple is replaced with a very similar structure, sporting an almost-identical depiction of the three figures.

“What you’re saying is we have access to another temple with the same capabilities as the Lothal one,” Poe says.

“Yes.  And I think you should keep scrolling on that datapad I gave you.”

He does so, paging down past the holo of the celebration to another version of Commander Skywalker’s report.  This one has apparently been classified top secret; the version he read earlier is the edited one seeded in the New Republic’s file system by the government’s Intelligence division.

This version of the report, which  has undergone corruption quite similar to the first one, has almost nothing more to say about the actual operation.  It _does_ go into much greater detail about Lieutenant Poe Dameron, who was apparently an Imperial infiltrator placed into the anti-Zsinj task force for unknown purposes.  This was only discovered after his convenient disappearance, which occurred following…

Poe looks up at her.  “According to this, I saved Master Skywalker’s life.”

General Organa gives him a grave nod.  “Doesn’t say how, or when.  But it’s clear: you were present in the anti-Zsinj task force as an X-Wing pilot, you flew with Luke, and at some point you saved his life.”

Letting the datapad drop back onto the desk, Poe rubs a hand along his jaw in contemplation, momentarily too flabbergasted to speak.  “I – I’m going to Eos, aren’t I?”

“The ship’s already underway.  You and I are going to the surface, alone.  I have the Force ability to use this thing to send you back to a point far enough in the past that we don’t risk undershooting you saving Luke’s life.”  She hands him something new: a computer spike, the kind professional slicers use to infiltrate enemy systems under fire.  “You stick this into any New Republic terminal on a ship or station, it’ll write you into the system as Lieutenant Poe Dameron, X-Wing pilot and recent transferee to General Han Solo’s anti-Zsinj task force.  The nice thing about dealing with thirty-year-old computer systems is that they’re easy to get into.”  She also hands him a forged New Republic ID card and a set of tags.

Poe stares at the equipment, then asks, “Am I going to be stealing a thirty-year-old flight suit, too?”

“I’m sure if you turn up at the quartermaster’s looking gormless they’ll take pity on you and get you kitted out properly,” General Organa says with a smirk.  “Just use your natural charms.”

Pocketing the items she’s given him, Poe asks her, “What’s the plan for retrieval?  You show up, looking thirty years older, and we disappear in a flash of light?  I think that might raise questions.”

“The Zsinj campaign was successfully concluded just before I returned to the New Republic from my diplomatic mission to Hapes,” the General says.  “I’ll bring you back to the present the day after the Warlord’s Super Star Destroyer, the _Iron Fist,_ is officially reported as destroyed.  Try to be alone and unobserved sometime on that day and I’ll pull you out then.”

“And if that means I get caught and thrown in prison before you can retrieve me?”

“If this temple works like Sabine Wren says the one on Lothal did, I can just as easily pull you out of a cell as I can your quarters or the cockpit of your X-Wing,” General Organa tells him.

Poe grimaces, but nods.  “Okay.  I’ll admit this is highly unusual, but…  I can’t exactly say no, can I?  I mean, the report and the holo are clear.  I _was_ there, and somehow, I _did_ save Master Skywalker’s life.  Or – I’m _going_ to.”

“Precisely.”  General Organa gives him a warm smile.  “We have about fifteen hours before we get to Eos, Commander.  I suggest you boot up the old T-65 simulator in the pilot’s lounge and refamiliarize yourself with the ship.  You’re not going to be invited to fly as Luke’s wingman if you’re anything less than brilliant, after all.  Dismissed.”

Head spinning, Poe nevertheless remembers to snap off another salute on his way out.  He begins making a mental checklist.  He needs to say hopefully-temporary goodbyes to the members of Black Squadron.  Also to BB-8 – the little droid is far too advanced to pass as part of that era, so he’ll have to stay behind.  He should indeed get in some practice on the T-65 simulator; the vintage Incom X-Wings have been retired for more than a decade, and he hasn’t flown one in even longer than that.

And during all of this, he needs to figure out a convincing way to lie to a Jedi Knight who asks him where he’s from.


	2. Dogfights

Three very confusing days later, Poe finds himself landing an Incom T-65 X-Wing in the hangar bay of the anti-Zsinj task force’s flagship, _Mon Remonda._

_Three days and negative thirty years,_ he thinks as he lets the deck crew guide him into a spot along one of the walls, amidst a host of other X-Wings.  The hyperspace jump from the frigate on which he’d… _arrived_ has given him plenty of time to think, and remember, and stew.  Painted figures on the temple walls, moving at General Organa’s silent command.  A vast, dark space of paths and portals, many of them showing him scenes from his own life.  Things he wishes he could go back and change, and knows he shouldn’t.

He lands his ship with aplomb and pops the cockpit seal.  The T-65 is fundamentally very similar to the T-70, though he misses his Black One snubfighter with a fierce and surprising passion.  Even a stock T-70 is faster, better-shielded, and more maneuverable than a T-65. 

Still, the Imperial fighters of this era are unshielded, slower, and no more maneuverable than the First Order’s.  He doubts he will run into any serious trouble.

There are two men waiting for him as he descends the egress ladder the deck crewers roll up to the side of his fighter.  One is brown-haired, small-framed, his face serious but unremarkable.  Poe feels a small thrill shoot through him as he recognizes the legendary Wedge Antilles.  The other man is slightly taller, paler, and has a wicked scar running down the left side of his face, marring otherwise-handsome features.  Poe remembers the briefing and recognizes Face Loran, former holodrama child star, now the number two in Wedge’s Wraith Squadron.

Reminding himself that here, he is a Lieutenant, not a Commander, Poe comes to attention and snaps a sharp salute to Wedge and Face.  Wedge is a Commander, and Face, while a Lieutenant like Poe, technically has seniority due to his leadership role with the Wraiths.  “Lieutenant Poe Dameron reporting, sirs.”

“At ease,” Wedge says.  “So, Lieutenant Dameron.  I have to say the orders I just received are highly unusual.  I’ve never heard of you, I don’t know what you’re capable of, and yet I have orders direct from High Command ordering you to be placed in either Wraith or Rogue Squadron as an auxiliary member.  Care to explain this?”  His voice is mild, with a definite Corellian accent betraying his famous origins.  Rather than accusatory, his question comes off as one of genuine puzzlement. 

Poe is quite certain it’s a calculated gambit to set him at ease, which in turn may cause him to divulge more than he should.  He gives a small, one-shoulder shrug.  “I was an undercover asset in Warlord Terradoc’s splinter faction for the past two years,” he says, quoting the cover story given to him by General Organa.  “Before that, I was with New Republic Intelligence.  Snubfighter training was an additional skill, not a career, but I’ve always loved it.  I took the Terradoc assignment as part of a deal with my superiors.  When I got back, I would be transferred to Starfighter Command.”

Wedge nods, the movement economical, even clipped.  “Starfighter Command has many squadrons with open placement slots.  Rogue and Wraith Squadrons, by contrast, do not have any.  In fact, we just took on a thirteenth member of the Wraiths because she came with her own X-Wing, and we’re short.  And, for the moment, Commander Luke Skywalker is flying with the Rogues.  You would be number fourteen, in either squadron.  Fourteen pilots in a single unit is unheard of.”

Careful to look nervous, but not as nervous as he really is, Poe shifts his weight subtly from one foot to the other.  Face Loran’s eyes glitter slightly.  Poe’s briefing told him that Loran is from Lorrd, a planet well known for its citizens’ mastery of body language, on top of being a master actor.  Nothing Poe does or says will be unnoticed.  “Yes, sir.  But, respectfully, my training scores do qualify me for admission into one of your squadrons.  And I’m rated on a T-65, not A-Wings or B-Wings.  Rogue and Wraith Squadrons are the only X-Wing squadrons with the anti-Zsinj taskforce, and I wanted to be here.”

“Personal enmity?” Face Loran asks, speaking for the first time.  His voice is cultured, his pronunciation and inflection perfect.  Poe takes a moment to admire the control and precision of that voice, so carefully refined.  “Or do you just have strong feelings about warlords?”

“The latter.”  Poe jerks a thumb at the blackness of space visible behind them through the magcon field.  “The Empire’s on its way out, but people like Zsinj and Terradoc are taking advantage of the chaos to gather power and wealth to themselves without any worries about who they hurt along the way.  I want to stop that.”

Wedge gives him a long, measuring look, then glances at Face.  Face gives him the barest fraction of a nod.  Poe pretends not to notice, doesn’t let himself relax at all.  He wants Loran to think he’s not quite observant enough to catch such subtleties on a first meeting.

“All right, Dameron,” Wedge says.  Last name, but no rank; a good sign.  “Orders are orders, whatever reservations I might have, and I’m sympathetic to your feelings – that, and you have an X-Wing assigned to you, a rarity in this day and age.  Where did Command even find one for you?”

“No idea, sir.”  It’s true; Poe has no idea what kind of wizardry the computer spike from General Organa performed to get him this snubfighter.  He just hopes the ship wasn’t reassigned from someone high enough up the chain of command to raise a big stink.  That might lead to an investigation, which in turn could blow his cover here before he has the chance to complete his mission.

He hopes, quietly, that he is assigned to Rogue Squadron.  Mostly he tells himself it’s because it will be easier to protect Master – _Commander,_ he has to remind himself, _Commander_ – Skywalker.  But he also knows it would be something of an ego booster for him.  He has always maintained, to anyone willing to listen, that he would be able to fly with the best of the Rogues in their heyday.

“Well, it doesn’t much matter,” Wedge says.  “You say you were with Intelligence, and were undercover for years.  That, and the fact that we’re still two X-Wings short in Wraith Squadron, makes me think that’s the place for you.  Do you have any infiltration or commando skills?”

Poe hides his disappointment.  The Wraiths are a commando unit first and a pilot unit second.  Then again, he’s here to do a job, not show off for his childhood heroes.  “Basic slicing, hand-to-hand combat, crack shooting with pistols and rifles,” he lists off.  “And I’m pretty good at sabacc.”

“Well, we can always use more generalists,” Wedge tells him.  “Worst case, if you’re a hotter hand on a stick than you are with a blaster in the field, we can have you fly air support for the rest of the Wraiths.  I’ll leave you with Face – he’ll get you your room assignment, introduce you to the squadron, and generally make you regret your decision to be here.”

Face gives Wedge an extremely good imitation of a genuinely hurt look.  “You know that kind of talk is damaging to squadron morale.”

“I have every confidence that you will find some way to carry on.”  Wedge steps forward and shakes Poe’s hand.  “Welcome to the Wraiths, Dameron.”

“Thank you, sir,” Poe says, managing to retain the presence of mind to obey protocol despite the fact that Wedge Antilles himself just shook his hand.  He watches the Corellian pilot walk away.

A moment later, Face speaks up.  “Okay,” he says, retrieving a datapad from his uniform’s pocket.  “Poe, there’s limited space on _Mon Remonda_.  As a Lieutenant you’d ordinarily be entitled to your own quarters, but we’re going to have to bunk you with someone else.  I’m putting you with the other Lieutenant in the squadron, Kell Tainer.  I’d put you in with me, but I like having my own quarters and Kell’s not here to object.”

Poe chuckles.  “Understood, sir.”

“Face is fine, Poe.  The Wraiths are generally no deco unless superior officers are present.”  Poe nods; _no deco,_ no decorum, is the standard of the Resistance as well – except, of course, when General Organa is in the room.  “Be in the officers’ lounge at 1800 to meet the rest of the squadron.  Should give you time to get in a quick shower and change.”

Poe shoulders his bag and follows Face to what, for the foreseeable future, will be his home.

* * *

_When Face said ‘meet the rest of the squadron,’_ Poe thinks, _this is not what I figured he had in mind._

He is strapped securely into the pilot’s seat of an X-Wing simulator, one of six in the lounge – a rarity, even in Poe’s time.  Having both the Rogues and the Wraiths onboard must account for the special treatment.  Face marched him in here five minutes ago, pointed to the simulator, and said, “Get in.  Friendly match.”  All the other simulators were already closed, either occupied or made to look that way.

Now he is flying toward an enemy X-Wing his board has designated as Wraith Twelve.  They are four kilometers apart and closing rapidly in a classic joust.  Poe knows this is a test; his new squadron wants to know what he is made of, wants to see where he falls among them in terms of skill.

Time to show them that, even in a T-65, he’s still the best pilot here.

He opens his S-Foils into attack position, sees the enemy ship doing the same thing.  _Good._   The standard laser convergence points for a T-65 with attack-position S-Foils is 1.5 kilometers.  Knowing this, Poe is ready for it when the enemy pilot fires a pair of quad bursts as the rangefinder ticks down to fifteen hundred meters.

Just before the bursts, Poe closes his own S-Foils again, narrowing his profile.  He shunts shield power to his engines and kicks his ship forward in an unexpected boost.  The quad bursts, set to converge on him a kilometer and a half away, flash around and past his ship instead.  One of the bolts sparks along the edge of his port shield, collapsing it, but it doesn’t matter.  With S-Foils closed, laser convergence is set to only half a kilometer.

Poe triggers his weapons and sends four scarlet bolts blasting through his opponent’s forward shields.  Even with the reduced power of closed S-Foils, his strike is surgical and undeniably effective.  The cockpit explodes and the unfortunate ship cracks almost in half, a textbook kill.

His sensor board pings; two new enemy X-Wing contacts, suddenly and magically appearing out of hyperspace exactly three kilometers in front of and behind him.  These ones are marked Wraiths Ten and Five, respectively.  Well, if they want to play dirty, so can he.  “R5,” he says.  “Assume a straight-line vector for the enemy ship in my aft, no speed deviation.  On my mark, launch a proton torpedo directly ahead.  Program it to cut thrusters and power down one second after launch.  On my second mark, launch another torpedo, proximity detonation, at where the enemy ship _should_ be.”

The simulated R5 unit assigned to his X-Wing for this exercise beeps an affirmative response.  Poe resists the urge to juke his ship out of the way of the guns before and behind him, and instead continues on a course straight ahead, reinforcing his shields with engine power and reopening his S-Foils.  He watches the enemy ships put power to their engines to close the distance with him.  For a moment he wonders why they aren’t using torpedoes themselves, then decides it’s because they know he’ll break and run the instant he hears the target lock warning.  They may believe he’s only noticed the X-Wing in front of him, and want to see if they can shoot him in the back.  That means using lasers.

At 1.7 kilometers, Poe says, “Mark.”

His simulator shudders like an actual X-Wing would as he launches a torpedo.  The ship in front of him, seeing the unguided launch, instantly breaks off their joust and swerves away.  The ship behind him does not see it and continues to close.

One second later, with Wraith Five about to hit the 1.5-kilometer mark and start shooting him, Poe’s torpedo cuts its thrust and goes dead in space, as programmed.  Poe rolls his X-Wing up onto its starboard wings, cutting around the torpedo, barely avoiding a collision.  Wraith Five takes their shot, the lasers hitting the torpedo instead of Poe’s aft shields.  The detonation is large, bright, and most importantly, the perfect shield for Poe.  He slams his rudder, yawing the ship around to point toward Wraith Five in a hard koiogran turn that overwhelms the inertial compensator and threatens to black him out.

“Mark!”

His X-Wing launches a second torpedo, programmed with the coordinates of where Wraith Five – momentarily blinded to Poe’s actions by the first torpedo detonation – ought to be.

Wraith Five sees the torpedo coming, all right, and reacts with admirable speed and skill, corkscrewing out of the way.  But Poe foresaw this, too.  The torpedo, which ordinarily would have sailed past, is on proximity detonation.  It passes within ten meters of Wraith Five and detonates.  The shield bubble around Wraith Five flickers wildly and goes out.  The X-Wing tumbles, uncontrollable, for a single critical second.

In that second, Poe’s quad-linked burst shreds the ship.

Wraith Ten is still out there, coming for Poe with a vengeance.  But now it’s a one-on-one fight, and Poe knows he can take any pilot short of Wedge Antilles head-to-head.  He slams his X-Wing forward into a joust with Wraith Ten, flipping his lasers over to single fire and spraying his approach vector with lethal scarlet bolts.  Wraith Ten gets off two double-linked shots, both of which miss, before the laser blasts hammering his forward shields force him to veer out of the joust.

Poe switches back over to quad fire, hauls his ship around in a Tallon roll.  He hits his rudder as he swings in a ninety-degree turn, slewing the ship’s aft end around so he ends up pointing in the direction from which he originally came.  Wraith Ten, who is in the middle of a koiogran turn to get himself turned around with less risk of blackout from overloaded inertial dampers, is caught flat-footed.  Poe blows him out of the sky a moment later.

“Anyone else?” he asks aloud.

The answer comes in the form of laser bolts hammering his aft shields.  Poe swears, throws his X-Wing into a sharp relative ascent.  He checks his scopes, sees a single X-Wing on them.  The designation is Wraith Null.

He frowns.  Nobody uses the Null designation, by tradition.  It’s considered bad luck.

But tradition can be broken, and if he’s not careful, he will be too.  Wraith Null is good, too good.  Every maneuver Poe tries to shake him fails.  The laser bolts keep coming, and despite Poe’s prodigious talent for evasive flying it seems that the enemy pilot knows where he’s going to be before he does.  His aft shields fail; he restores them, redirecting energy from all other facings to bring them back up.  Then they fail again a moment later as more laser blasts rock his beleaguered fighter.  He is naked under enemy guns.  _Just like that time on Nar Shadda,_ he thinks, resisting a grin.  If he got out of there, he can pull this off, too.

Tactics.  Wraith Null is in his aft and he’s better than Poe, almost supernaturally good.  Standard evasive flying won’t work.  It’s time for desperate measures.

“R5, on my mark, launch another torpedo.  Have it go straight for a hundred meters and then detonate.  Mark!”

The torpedo rockets away and detonates almost immediately.  Gritting his teeth, Poe flies directly through the expanding explosion.  His ship rocks, multiple gauges start flashing red, and the simulated R5 gives a high-pitched, wailing squeal that abruptly cuts off.  But he has a crucial half-second in which Wraith Null can’t see him, and in that half-second he could bank in any direction.  Unless Wraith Null magically guesses which direction it will be, he has a solid chance of getting out from under the other pilot’s guns and back into the fight.

He slams the stick hard to his left and stomps down on the rudder, beginning another Tallon roll.

A moment later, the simulator goes completely black.  Everything shuts down.  He stares at the useless, dead stick in his hand, momentarily uncomprehending.  Had the software crashed?

His cockpit swings open of its own accord.  Light rushes in, making him squint.  Standing over him are vague, mostly-humanoid shapes.  One of them extends a hand, helping him out of the simulator.

When he can see again, Poe recognizes Face as the one who helped him out.  “Impressive work,” Face says, consulting a datapad.  “Three kills, two of them when you were caught in the open with enemies on both sides.  Unorthodox tactics with proton torpedoes.  Excellent maneuvering.  Frankly, you’ve just rocketed to the top of the pilot rankings in this squadron without even flying a mission.”

Poe shakes his head, looking around at the other people gathered with him.  A tall human male he recognizes as Kell Tainer, a shorter one he knows is Myn Donos.  Next to Kell is a petite human woman he thinks is Tyria Sarkin.  They smile and offer him congratulations and welcomes.

“Thank you,” Poe says.  “I mean it.  But I don’t understand, sir – Face.  If I’m top of the pilot rankings, then who –”

One of the simulators hisses open, much to his surprise.  A sandy-haired, blue-eyed man a little younger than Poe clambers out, looking earnest and smiling pleasantly.  He is wearing a New Republic flight suit with a Rogue Squadron patch.

“That would be,” Face says, “because the man who vaped you is not part of Wraith Squadron.  He just agreed to be our closer for this exercise so you can see why you’re with us and not them.”  He grins.  “Ego is death for pilots, after all.”

Poe gives him a pained smile and turns to his very familiar, very important erstwhile opponent.  “Let me guess,” he says.  “Commander Skywalker.”

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, nods and shakes Poe’s hand.  “Good to meet you, Lieutenant Dameron.  You fly very well.”

“Thank you, sir.”  Poe finds it easy to keep the awe from his voice; he is, after all, still a little sore from the defeat.  As Face wanted it, he expects.  “It’s an honor, sir.”

“Just Luke is fine.  No sir.” 

“Got it… Luke.”

Luke gives him a sheepish grin.  “So, Poe.  Where are you from?”


End file.
